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by marcosdumay 3390 days ago
Hum...

> 1) Apple has shown substantial backbone in fighting against the US government when pressed to exploit a phone.

And the phone was exploited anyway. The only thing that was established is that Apple must not be forced to help.

> 2) The other choice is a device made by a Chinese or Korean company with a semi-open operating system made by a US company.

That makes both alike.

> 3) Either device will have a totally closed baseband chip.

This is the one the iPhone got right. On the iPhones, it is insulated by a closed interface.

> 4) Deploying and maintaining secure Linux environment on a Laptop is a full time job that requires expertise journalists don't have.

Ditto for Android, iOS, Windows, OS/2, AIX, GNU/Hurd... And anything else you may think about.

> 5) Open versus closed source is a red herring. Everyone is using pre-compiled binaries.

Open source is a necessary condition for securing against any targeted attack. It's just far from sufficient. Also, pre-compiled binaries can help you.

Anyway, both platforms are pretty much closed.

1 comments

No, open source is not a necessary condition for security. But we agree that it's insufficient, which is progress.